Given that this is an immunity challenge, this should be a pretty up-beat episode.
Andy is not going to be judging today – and this is already
my favourite episode of the season so far.
Jock and Mel explain the challenge - it is all about thinking on feet and going
with your gut. The table has 10 ingredients that the contestants can see and
another 10 surprise ingredients paired with those that they can’t see. They
have to choose an ingredient based on what they see and have to feature both
the ingredients (including the surprise one) in their dish.
Dan is pumped and says whatever is thrown at him, he’s going
to make the best of that situation. In other words, Fusion Dan is back after
Jock specifically told him he hates Fusion Dan literally last episode.
Depinder goes first and chooses mango. Her surprise
ingredient is chillies – actually a pretty common combo. She then rattles off
some 100 ideas he has immediately on what all can be done.
Dan has decided that he’s doing a dessert for some reason.
This is a low risk cook, so it does make sense. He goes for figs and gets a
pairing of Licorice. Tom from the gantry is happy and is saying that’s a good combination.
Dan doesn’t seem thrilled at all.
Conor picks cherries and gets coffee as a surprise
ingredient.
Therese goes for blue cheese and gets corn as a surprise
ingredient. The whole room goes WTF – Therese regrets even more considering she
could have chosen literally anything else and it would have been better.
Kishwar goes for most desi looking ingredient there and takes
mint. This is paired with beetroot.
Depinder has settled on making fried chicken with a mango
chili glaze – sounds amazing.
Kishwar is doing Middle Eastern today – the main thing she
is doing is grilled prawns which doesn’t have either mint of beetroot, all of
her main ingredients are in the salsa and the salad.
Mel is excited about the Middle Eastern dish because the
last bit of travel she did pre-COVID was to Morocco –a country on the Western
coast of Africa some 5000km away from the Middle east.
Mel says Jock and her
are an odd pair. She reiterates that the theme of the challenge is “You don’t
always get what you want” - Jock agrees that he never wanted Mel or Andy as
co-judges.
Dan mentions he hates licorice for the first of 700 times
this episode. Dan describes licorice as ‘melted sugar on the road’.
Poor Therese is trying to make the best of her garbage
ingredients by playing to her strengths – she’s making an ice cream sandwich –
blue cheese ice cream and corn centre. She is also not making a proper biscuit
but a frozen liquid shortbread (the same thing Reynold tried last year). Mel
reminds her that Reynold’s attempt was a disaster and would she please just
make a regular biscuit. Therese is however bent on revenge for these ingredients
and will serve liquid bread to the judges despite their doubts. General theme
of this season is of course, if judges tell you something won’t work – you should
just do it anyway and things will be fine.
Tom seems to be more invested in Dan’s dish than Dan himself.
Now Fusion Dan is well and truly back – he is doing a Chinese five spice thing
since licorice tastes like fennel. This is either going to be amazing or a
total disaster.
Jock makes fun of Dan going back to fusion and says he
doesn’t mind fusion – he just hates Dan doing fusion.
Depinder’s plans for fried chicken seem solid. Jock and Mel
are super excited – Jock cannot stop smiling. It is clear that she’s going to
win. In fairness, she also has the best flavor
combo.
Sabina from gantry is cheering on Kishwar like anything and
makes the helpful suggestion that she should make this dish really tasty.
Conor has made a coffee granite and is now doing a cherry
chiboust. He realizes that he doesn’t have enough cherry in his cherry chiboust
– now he needs a third element. Now he is making cherry syrup. His dish looks
good.
Tom is now playing Dan’s usual role in the gantry i.e.
talking too much and providing all with cringe moments. He is asking Depinder “Is it delicious? Did
you love it? Are the judges going to love it?” – she humours him for a bit and
then literally tells him to shut up.
Therese is in no fucks given mode and now is tasting her
stuff straight from the piping bags. She does not care about this cook at
all.
Kishwar says she is cooking like she would cook for a family
feast at home – which is totally different from any other cook for her in this
kitchen.
Jock now makes fun of Dan about his organization on the
bench. He is disappointed in him and Dan says he’s disappointed many Scottish
men in his life. TMI bro.
Coming back to the food, everyone is mostly done with their
dishes. Dan’s panna cotta is nicely set but for some reason he has removed it
in the wrong plate and now he has to transfer it to his actual serving
plate. He asks the gantry if he just
pick it up and Tom laughs in his face at this ignorance. He then uses a spatula
to try to make the transfer but ends up flipping it – it is off-centre but at
least it’s on the plate.
The Tasting:
Depinder up first. Jock cannot wait to start eating – both jock
and Mel are super happy – seems like this is a winner.
Kishwar brings up all her dishes. Her Middle Eastern prawns are
good but have neither of the 2 flavours she was supposed to have. All of that is in the side dishes. Jock says
he ‘loved the generosity of the spread’ which is another way of saying ‘you did
too much and most of it wasn’t good’. We also see a return of Salt Nazi Jock
who says everything was under seasoned.
Therese’s dish now. Mel found the blue cheese ice cream was
great – liquid shortbread good flavour – very difficult to nail. Jock said the
corn was a lacking in flavour so good dish overall in the circumstances, but we
all knew this was not going to work out.
Conor’s granite is very good but no one can taste anything else.
Mel says he could have added some cherry flavour by cutting cherries and
throwing them on the dish. Conor is embarrassed that he didn’t think of this
genius idea.
Dan says he is Restrained Fusion Dan today. Jock does his thing of staring at the
contestants while he is tasting. Both judges like the dish.
Depinder wins the challenge because her 2 ingredients came
out more strongly than Dan’s because who cares for subtlety.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy she won but seems like if the
brief is met, the primary judging criteria should be which dish tastes better
and not “how much of the featured ingredient has been stuffed into it”.
Just as you think this will be nice short episode, now there
is a Masterclass.
Ugh, we have to see Andy this episode after all. He is going to do his take on the under bench
staples challenge. At the beginning
itself he cheats by taking 3 ingredients from the garden instead of two. He has taken two types of beetroot[1]
(because one is not disgusting enough) and sorrel.
He is making some sort of a baked beetroot salad. Justin is struggling with the timer – not sure
why Andy couldn’t have just set the time himself. Now he is pouring clarified butter into his
hollandaise and half of it is ending up on Depinder because of the wind.
Andy completes his disgusting beetroot dish by complimenting
himself on his asbestos hands. Two poor people are asked to taste it and by
this time I was just waiting for the next thing to start that hopefully doesn’t
involve beetroot.
The contestants now head to the next session. Conor seems to
be wearing a boiler suit for some reason.
Laura is back to take this masterclass and to everyone’s
shock and disbelief, she is making pasta. No one has seen this coming and
everyone is reeling.
She makes a double filled ravioli and then a simple butter
sauce and pangratato (same thing that Elise had made in her audition).
Laura then makes fun of Mel for their idiotic ideas of
random eliminations – so I am okay with her on this episode.
For some reason, they feel this dish should be tasted only
by 2 people and one of those has to be Elise - the half Italian who has
literally made half this dish in the kitchen already. Lots of value add for her
I’m sure. Fusion Dan is also called up
to taste in latest bid to get him to cook proper food.
The contestants are now sent off to Jock and Mel easts the
rest of the dish.
Jock’s masterclass was meh to say the least. He showed a few
useful techniques to use the hibachi. And also gave some useless advice like “you
need confidence to use the hibachi” as if that is going to make the meat cook
correctly.
He then shows everyone how to break down a spatchcock and a
chicken – which leaves everyone somewhat disgusted.
And then he makes mashed potatoes – what is the obsession of
teaching things like this in masterclasses. Do you really think the contestants
who have cooked restaurant quality dishes in the kitchen don’t know how to mash
potatoes?
Sigh anyway – so that is done.
Let’s see what happens at the next episode – an all in
elimination.
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